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A truly immediate move out of the city would have been awesome. Presumably they'd be playing the current series in Sacramento on an emergency basis, then to one of the bigger parks without a AAA tenant -- Hiram Bithorn in San Juan or TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha (where I'd guess they'd have to pay the Royals compensation, which would be kind of awesome). Or, better yet, the Little League World Series stadium in South Williamsport. It seats 40,000, and you could probably move the fences out to 320 or so, though you'd have to chop down the hedge and the last 50 feet all the way around would be on a fairly serious incline.

It seems more like a defensive maneuver to me. Because without the permission Oakland would have the A's against the wall: there are no alternatives to the Coliseum in Oakland and you need somewhere to play next season, now shut up and sign a 25-year lease...

The deal is essentially the same proposal that the A's and Coliseum board made public on Tuesday - but which the Oakland City Council tried to kill. The council wanted the A's to pay $21 million over the 10 year term of the lease instead of $15.5 million, which the team will pay, and they wanted the A's to commit to playing in the Coliseum until at least Dec. 31, 2019 instead of Dec. 31, 2017.

Oakland has a grand opportunity to improve their economic base by letting a crappy business walk instead of giving it handouts, and they are going to fumble it away because ti's threatening to move with nowhere to go?

They really want to subsidize an immense concrete structure that provides mostly minimum wage jobs for 4 hours every one out of four days? While the owner and a small set of ludicrously highly paid employees spend their profits and paychecks almost entirely out of the city?

I can't imagine how much more economic value they'd get selling or even giving the property away to a developer to build office or retail space without subsidies, that will create far more full time jobs by being operated full time year round, with a much more balanced range of wages, and likely with more of the profits/wages spent inside the city's borders.

They're already subsidizing an immense(ly expensive) rail extension from the Coliseum-adjacent BART stop to the airport even though there's a perfectly good (and cheaper for passengers) shuttle bus service in place because... those unclassy shuttle buses are the reason most folks fly thru SFO, or something? The stupidity of Oakland's leaders is just staggering.

I approve Selig doing this because Oakland's politicians are staggeringly incompetent. This had nothing to do with principle, it was more about posturing and an internecine rivalry between Rebecca Kaplan and Oakland's exceptionally idiotic mayor, Jean Quan.

Even if the A's said we're off, they wouldn't build a community there. They'd probably build a football stadium for the Raiders, the team that plays in Oakland less than one-tenth as often as the A's.

Since it's clear that cities with teams are going to end up paying money somehow, they should at least keep that money in public coffers. How about this: the cities with teams and the localities that could plausibly support teams get together and strike a deal whereby the former pay the latter to not offer any enticements (stadia, tax breaks, etc) to get teams to move.